This invention relates in general to the field of supply chain, enterprise and site planning and, more particularly, to a method for workflow synchronization.
Supply chain, enterprise and site planning applications and environments are widely used by manufacturing entities for decision support and to help manage operations. Decision support environments for supply chain, enterprise, and site planning have evolved from single-domain, monolithic environments to multi-domain, monolithic environments. Conventional planning software applications are available in a wide range of products offered by various companies. These decision support tools allow entities to more efficiently manage complex manufacturing operations. However, supply chains are generally characterized by multiple, distributed and heterogenous planning environments. Thus, there are limits to the effectiveness of conventional environments when applied to the problem of supply chain planning due to monolithic application architectures. Further, these problems are exacerbated when there is no one xe2x80x9cownerxe2x80x9d of the entire supply chain.
It is desirable for the next evolutionary step for planning environments to establish a multi-domain, heterogenous architecture that supports products spanning multiple domains, as well as spanning multiple engines and products. The integration of the various planning environments into a seamless solution can enable inter-domain and inter-enterprise supply chain planning. Further, an important function provided by some planning applications is the optimization of the subject environment rather than simply tracking transactions. In particular, the RHYTHM family of products available from I2 TECHNOLOGIES provide optimization functionality. However, with respect to planning at the enterprise or supply chain level, many conventional applications, such as those available from SAP, use enterprise resource planning (ERP) engines and do not provide optimization.
The success or failure of an enterprise can depend to a large extent on the quality of decision making within the enterprise. Thus, decision support software, such as I2 TECHNOLOGIES"" RHYTHM family of products, that support optimal decision making within enterprises can be particularly important to the success of the enterprise. In general, optimal decisions are relative to the domain of the decision support where the domain is the extent of the xe2x80x9cworldxe2x80x9d considered in arriving at the decision. For example, the decision being made may be how much of a given item a factory should produce during a given time period. The xe2x80x9coptimalxe2x80x9d answer depends on the domain of the decision. The domain may be, for example, just the factory itself, the supply chain that contains the factory, the entire enterprise, or the multi-enterprise supply chain. (The latter two can be considered to be larger domains or multiple domains.) Typically, the larger the domain of the decision support, the more optimal the decision will be. Consequently, it is desirable for decision support software to cover ever larger domains in the decision making process. One solution is to design workflows which can be a set of activities joined by dataflows that together accomplish some tasks. Workflows can be executed on one or more workflow engines over one or more enterprises. As workflows run over different engines and different enterprises the ability to efficiently manage the workflows becomes essential. What is needed is a method to synchronize workflows.
In accordance with the present invention, a method for workflow synchronization is disclosed that provides advantages over conventional supply chain, enterprise and site planning environments.
A method for synchronizing workflows is discloses. The first step comprises initializing the execution of a plurality of workflows. The next step is providing synchronization logic in at least one of the plurality of workflows. In the third step the execution of a workflow is paused until the synchronization logic is complete. In the final step the execution of the plurality of workflows continues.
A technical advantage of the present invention is the ability to design, synchronize and control workflows distributed over multiple enterprises. Another technical advantage is to synchronize and coordinate multiple instances of a workflow running on an engine.
Additional technical advantages should be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the following figures, descriptions, and claims.